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'Wallabies love giving us all heart attacks': Fans react to Australia's incredible win

(Photo by Ian Cook - CameraSport via Getty Images)

The Wallabies’ stunning victory over Wales on Sunday morning (AEDT) may go down in history as one of the greatest rugby comebacks of the year – if not all time.

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Coming off three straight losses by three points or less, the Wallabies had a point to prove at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium 10 months out from the Rugby World Cup.

But as it has been all year, indiscipline continued to hurt the men in gold throughout their thrilling clash against one of their traditional rugby rivals.

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Jake Gordon and Tom Robertson were both sent to the sin bin during the first half, and Wales made the most of their two player advantage.

While they began to really pile on the points, it seemed Australia may be down for the count after Wales winger Rio Dyer scored 12 minutes into the second half.

But the Wallabies weren’t done yet.

A double to rising star Mark Nawaqanitawase was the start of something incredible for the visitors, who went on to score 26 unanswered points – and to win the crunch clash in Cardiff.

Replacement hooker Lachlan Lonergan scored the go-ahead try with less than two minutes to play, before securing the match winning turnover shortly after.

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After an up and down international season, the result means the 2022 Wallabies avoid some unwanted history, dating back to 1958.

Australian rugby fans on Twitter were, for the most part, thrilled with the result – with one supporter saying the “future looks promising” for the Wallabies after the win.


The Wallabies were losing 34-13 after Welsh flyhalf Gareth Anscombe converted Dyer’s try.

But the impact of key players off the bench including Tate McDermott and Pete Samu proved key for Dave Rennie’s team, as they fought valiantly for the incredible result.

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After five matches during their spring tour, the Wallabies only won two Test matches – but make no mistake, this is a team on the rise.

The Wallabies began their tour with a thrilling one-point win over Scotland at Murrayfield, with flyhalf Blair Kinghorn missing a last minute penalty attempt.

But three consecutive losses to France, Italy and Ireland followed for the men in gold, although they lost all of these games by three points or less.

As most fans on Twitter would seemingly agree, the future has the potential to be quite bright for Australian rugby,.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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